Monterey Car Week Unsung Heroes

Words: Steve Ellis | Photos: Rami Garcia & Ezekiel Wheeler

For one week every year, Monterey becomes the center of the automotive world. It is one of those places that is already beautiful without needing much help. You have ocean views, rolling hills, winding roads, trees and some of the most incredible scenery in California. Then, for one week, you add some of the most significant cars in the world that makes for a pretty incredible combination.

For anyone who loves cars, it can be a little overwhelming, and that is before you even get into what is happening behind the scenes. I had the opportunity this year to experience Car Week from a slightly different perspective. Instead of showing up to the events and enjoying them as a guest, I spent a good portion of the week admiring the behind-the-scenes effort that makes all of this possible.

From the outside, Car Week can look almost effortless. You arrive at an event where there are beautiful cars sitting exactly where they are supposed to be. There is food, drinks, displays, transportation and staff ready to take care of everything.

What you don't see is everything that had to happen before you arrived.

Cars have to be transported. They have to be detailed. Events have to be built. Equipment has to be delivered. People have to be moved around. Schedules constantly change. And when something goes wrong, somebody has to figure it out.

Usually, you don't even know there was a problem. That is really what working behind the scenes during Car Week showed me. There is an enormous amount of work happening all around you, but most of it is intentionally invisible.

One of the things that stood out to me this year wasn't actually an automobile. It was a gate.

The 17-Mile Drive is one of the most recognizable parts of the Monterey area. The scenery is incredible, and the roads winding through the coastline have become part of the Car Week experience for a lot of enthusiasts. This year, however, access was much more restricted.

Following problems with some visitors during the previous year's Car Week, access was limited to residents and guests with permission to enter. It was a pretty noticeable change, especially for anyone accustomed to driving through the area during Car Week.

While at one of the gates, I spoke with James Flitwell, who has worked with the city for roughly 30 years. I asked him what he thought about Monterey Car Week and all the people it brings into the area.His answer was pretty straightforward.

"I love the cars. What I don't enjoy are the rude and entitled people who descend on the area. So this year, we have the restrictions that we put in place to manage the area better. We want people to visit, but respectfully.”

It was an interesting perspective to hear.

For most of us who travel to Monterey for Car Week, it is an experience we look forward to all year. But for the people who actually live there, it is also their home.

The cars are incredible, the events are incredible, and the atmosphere is something you can't really duplicate anywhere else. But if we want Monterey Car Week to continue being what it is, there has to be some respect for the community that hosts it.

Another thing that really caught my attention happened after one of the events. I had spent some time at the Broad Arrow Auctions event across from The Quail. Like most people, I was focused on the cars and the event itself.Then the event ended, and suddenly, the whole thing changed.

I watched trucks begin lining up along the driveway. One after another. Workers were everywhere, breaking down displays, loading equipment and tearing apart what had only hours earlier looked like a permanent automotive showroom.

It was almost strange to watch.

All of this work had gone into creating something that would exist for only a few days, and then, almost immediately, it was being taken apart.

During a short break, I spoke with a gentleman named Tony, who was working on breaking down one of the displays. I asked him what he thought about Car Week.

His response gave me another perspective.

"For us, it's a job. We travel around building things and setting things up. I do enjoy the cars, and as an American Muscle guy myself, it's great seeing the classics being driven. I need to find some time to enjoy the events myself one of these years!"

I actually loved that answer.

For people attending Car Week, this is often a once-a-year pilgrimage. For Tony and the people he works with, it is their job. They travel from event to event, building these temporary worlds and then tearing them down when everyone else has gone home.

And yet, even he still wanted to find the time to actually enjoy Car Week.

That says a lot.

The Part Nobody Really Sees, that is probably the biggest thing I took away from this year's experience. The cars are obviously the stars of Monterey Car Week. They are what bring people here, but there is an enormous number of people who make the whole thing happen.

Think about what it takes to have hundreds of thousands of people descend on the Monterey Peninsula in the same week.

Someone has to move all those cars.

Someone has to clean them.

Someone has to prepare the food.

Someone has to build the displays.

Someone has to provide security.

Someone has to set up the lighting.

Someone has to unload the trucks.

Someone has to drive the guests.

Someone has to clean everything up afterward.

And then there are the people behind the scenes who are constantly making phone calls, sending messages and trying to keep everything moving when plans inevitably change.

A lot of these people probably won't get much recognition for what they do.

But without them, Car Week simply wouldn't work. That became especially apparent to me watching the teardown after the Broad Arrow event. Dozens of people were working while everyone else had already moved on to the next thing. The guests had left. The cars were gone.

But the work wasn't finished. In many ways, that's Monterey Car Week. There is this incredible spectacle happening in front of you, but there is an entire second event happening behind it.

After spending more time behind the scenes this year, I found myself appreciating Car Week a little differently.

Of course, I still love cars. Where else can you see an automobile from the early 1900s driving down the same road as a brand-new hypercar? Where else can you see automotive history, the present and the future all occupying the same few miles?

But now I also find myself paying attention to the people.

So, to all of you who spent long hours working behind the scenes during Monterey Car Week, I tip my hat to you. You may not have been the people standing in front of the cameras or walking the concours lawn, but you were the reason those people were able to have the experience they came for.

And that deserves some recognition.

Because when the crowds leave, the temporary buildings come down and the trucks head out of town, Monterey returns to being Monterey. The ocean is still there. The hills are still there. The roads are still winding through the trees, and somewhere along the way, the people who made Car Week happen finally get to go home.